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01 May 2011

Quantity vs Quality

"The glass is half empty"
"The glass is half full"

No- the glass contains a sufficient amount of liquid to occupy half the container! Why does it always have to be black or white? Why does it have to be pessimist or optimist? Honestly, I do know that I lean toward the pessimist side, but I really do hate determining a person's outlook on life by whether they see a glass as half full or empty.

To be quite honest, it doesn't really matter how much you have in a glass....what matters is the quality of what's in the glass! If you are looking for something to drink, and all you have around is a glass with muddy, polluted water, who cares how full it is?? You can say it's completely full, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing. However, if you are looking to research something in the muddy and polluted water, you'd probably consider even a half a glass to be great.

And what about size? If you have a kiddie cup that's half full when you're extremely thirsty, half full really isn't a good thing. I mean, it's better than nothing, but it's not sufficient for hydration. Unless you're a kid. Then it may be enough. On the other hand, if I had one of those huge Thermoses that they sell, half full is too much. It would take me an entire day to drink that much.

Then there are the times that....as long as it's filled with something good (margaritas are good!), you'd like it to be more full, but the fact that you're having a margarita (oo, or a daquiri!) completely trumps that. Heck, you can have a half empty glass, as long as there's something good inside.

Applications to optimism and pessimism? Nah. I don't like thinking of the amount of liquid the glass contains.

Applications to life? I don't like thinking about the amount of things that fill my life. I can have a billion things filling my life, and still be unhappy....or a few small good things that may make all the difference. It's not the quantity. It's the quality. I think when looking at life, people tend to forget that. They look at how many things they have, or "how much" they have, instead of "what" they have.

Having a big house and tons of TVs and phones and constant internet access is one thing, but what if you have it alone? It really loses it's quality. So there's the glass being more than half full, but not satisfying. Having a small apartment alone, with all the things you need but nothing extra, where you can enjoy your time and do the things you need to can completely outweigh that. That's the glass being less than half full, but still satisfying.

What it boils down to is whether or not you consider all the factors that impact someone's life, not just the quantity of things (or experiences) they have. Quality (for me, at least) seems much more important. I'd rather have a life lacking a lot of things, but with a few good things, than a life that has everything, but is lacking in quality.